FIGS. 1 and 2 of the accompanying drawings show an example of a goods-handling door to which the invention may be applied. This door comprises two vertical lateral uprights 1 and 2 interconnected at their top ends by a horizontal cross-bar 3. The uprights are generally channel section, each including a vertical slideway 4. The uprights and the cross-bar are intended to be placed around a door bay so as to enable the door to open and close the bay. Advantageously, the area left free between the uprights and beneath the cross-bar corresponds to the area of the door bay, with the uprights and the cross-bar being placed against the wall surrounding the door bay.
The closure surface of the door is constituted by panels 5 that are hinged together in pairs by horizontal hinges with hinge pins passing therethrough. The hinge pins also constitute reinforcing bars 6, 7, with every other reinforcing bar extending into the slideways, beginning with the bottom bar 7A. The length of the panels is substantially equal to or slightly less than the width of the door, i.e. the available gap between the uprights 1 and 2, thereby making it possible to fold up the panels between the uprights. The door is opened by raising the bottom bar 7A whose ends extend into the slideways for guidance purposes. The bottom bar may be raised by straps which are fixed to the bottom bar and which are wound onto a wind-up shaft preferably housed inside the top cross-bar.
By winding up the straps, the bar 7A is raised, thereby folding the bottom two panels 5A and 5B against each other with the hinge bar 6A interconnecting them moving out away from the plane of the door (given that the bar 6A is of such a length as to ensure that its ends to not penetrate into the slideways 4 of the uprights). Thereafter, the bottom bar 7A comes into abutment against the next bar up 7B that does have its ends engaged in the slideways of the uprights and begins to raise it, and so on until all of the panels are folded up against one another at the top of the door, as shown in FIG. 2.
The invention applies in general to other types of goods-handling doors made up of panels that need not necessarily be hinged to one another, e.g. to doors as shown in FIGS. 3 and 4 of the drawings.
In FIG. 3, the door is provided with vertical lateral uprights 1 and 2 each including a slideway, with the slideways of said uprights 1 and 2 extending upwards in the form of sloping or horizontal slideways given respective references 8 and 9. The door is provided with panels 5 that are hinged together about reinforcing bars 7 all of which extend into the slideway. To open the door, the top panel 5C is pulled upwards, thereby pulling the others along the slideways 8 and 9.
In FIG. 4, the door is provided with two vertical lateral uprights 1 and 2 each including a slideway 4 having panels 5 that slide therein but that are not hinged to one another. When the door is opened, the panels 5 are stacked together above the door.
In addition, application of the invention is not limited to doors that are raised vertically: the panels may slide horizontally towards a side of the door.